


A Bird's-Eye View of Saint Denis

by Midnightminx90



Series: Hosea and family [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death, M/M, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29539395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnightminx90/pseuds/Midnightminx90
Summary: The end of Hosea Matthews
Relationships: Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Series: Hosea and family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170176
Kudos: 12





	A Bird's-Eye View of Saint Denis

**Author's Note:**

> Title is, as with the first work, a modified line from San Luis by Gregory Alan Isakov

Hosea’s called mother hen, called brother, called conman, called love, called uncle. He‘s been at Dutch’s side for years, and while he strayed for a while, he returned. 

There’s something magnetic about Dutch, especially when he is in his element, a plan in his mind and gold on the horizon. 

Dutch makes the plans. Dutch leaves with the men in their group. Hosea’s the one who stays behind. Who watches the women. Who keeps them safe. Oh, Hosea has his own schemes and plans. He’ll talk to targets and con them so smoothly they never know what happened.    
  
But when it comes to the robberies and something that will inevitably involve shooting, he stays with the women and Pearson and the reverend.    
Each time Hosea questions if he’ll see them again. Questions who’ll hang or will need to be released from jail or saved from bounty hunters. Or just plain shot dead.   
  
Grief is a heavy burden to bear, and Hosea bears every loss on his shoulders. His beloved Bessie. Each and every member of the gang. John for the year he was gone and Hosea thought that  _ finally _ someone had made it out of there alive, gotten out of the life like he never could, even with Bessie at his back, because at the back of his mind there was Dutch, Dutch, Dutch. Dutch’s trust. Dutch’s love.    
  
He grieved for Eliza and Isaac, like they were his own family. By the time they were killed, he had already lost Bessie long ago, and knew all too well Arthur’s grief at the loss. He never met the woman and her son, but knew how much they mattered to Arthur based on how he never gave up on them.    
  
Once, Hosea had been enough for Dutch. Once, Dutch had been happy with Hosea by his side and Arthur and John under their wings. Once, it had been enough to rob the rich and give the cash and gold and jewelry to the poor.   
  
At some point that had changed, though. At some point, Dutch started to listen to people he shouldn’t have. At some point, he started killing innocent people and manipulating others to use them.   
  
Dutch and Colm both had their roles to play in that happening, but most of all, Hosea blames Micah for planting ideas in Dutch’s head, and even more so himself for not being able to stop it.   
  
Once, Hosea’s and Arthur’s plan in Blackwater would have been enough.   
  
Dutch has lost much, too, lost Annabelle and Colm, lost the woman he loved and a man he called brother. What Dutch has not realised is that he’s lost Hosea too. And Hosea sees the dissonance within the gang, after the losses and hardships and plan after plan that inevitably fails or doesn’t result in as much money as they should have.   
  
With all that, Hosea sees Dutch is losing the faith of some of the members, even though the members themselves have yet to realise it. He sees it in Arthur’s eyes, when the man doesn’t think anyone sees it. He hears it in John’s voice when he talks to Abigail at night, not aware that Hosea is lying awake just a few feet away.   
  
Hosea knows the end is near, and that for each time they move, each time they gain notoriety and attract attention, the end moves ever closer. The questions he doesn’t know the answers to though, is the ‘how, when and where’ of it. The end of the gang? The ends of their lives? In Saint Denis or the swamps or back in the mountains again, attempting to lose the Pinkertons for just a short while more?   
  
He hears Arthur cough, hears death rattling in his chest, not too different from the sounds coming from himself.   
  
The next death is anyone’s guess, but it’s as inevitable as death itself, and this time it comes in the form of another of Dutch’s failed plans, born from Dutch listening to the wrong person yet again.   
  
There is a moment, brief and fleeting as the bullet hits him and he falls to the ground, that Hosea feels grateful for his death.    
  
It’s been a long time coming, something inevitable, even more so these past months after Blackwater. Dying in bed had never been in his cards, not with the life he’s lived.    
But mostly, Hosea is grateful for his death now, in this moment, because he, more than anyone, even more than Arthur, has witnessed Dutch’s decline and feared the outcome.   
  
Dying here, now, means he won’t have to watch the man he once loved more than anything descend even further into madness.


End file.
